For any Australian small business or network
Every business is on one of seven rungs.Find yours. The next one is one page away.
From leaking cash to running every job to an open standard, in an order that pays for itself as it goes. 24 published standards sit underneath this ladder, and every rung has a proof you can run before you trust it.
Free, no card. It tells you which rung you are on.
How to read the ladder
Rung 1 comes before the foundation on purpose: it needs nothing underneath it, and it pays for the rest.
The seven rungs
Each one names where you are, what to do, what proves it, and what it unlocks. Read down until a rung sounds like your week.
- 0
Leaking, and not sure where
You are here if
- Calls go to voicemail after hours and some of them never ring back.
- Invoices are chased from memory, or not at all.
- The policy is in someone's email and the price list is on a laptop.
What to do
- Size the missed calls with your own numbers. Two-minute calculator→
- Or talk through your week and get a costed read on all five jobs. Eight-minute diagnosis→
- What proves it
- A number you typed yourself, not an industry statistic.
- What it costs
- Free. No card, no call booked unless you want one.
- What it unlocks
- Knowing which job leaks most, which is the one to fix first.
- 1
One job fixed on the phone
You are here if
- You know the leak and it is the phone, or it is the money.
- You want a win this month, not a project this quarter.
What to do
- Point your after-hours number at Booked After Hours: the job written into ServiceM8 or Simpro during the call. The trades page→
- Or point the chase at Get Paid: overdue invoices called against live Xero, a promise as a date. The Xero page→
- What proves it
- A proof id per call. One job per caller. The Do Not Call Register washed. Disclosure first.
- What it costs
- An insert, flat monthly, no call caps. Thirty-day trial.
- What it unlocks
- Cash back in the business, and a habit of holding a job to a standard before the long rungs start.
- 2
The foundation
You are here if
- Nobody can say which copy of the manual is current.
- A new starter spends a fortnight asking where things are.
- You are being sold an AI knowledge base that answers from the old edition.
What to do
- Build the knowledge base: every source on one register with a person's name on it, on the Microsoft 365 or Workspace tenant you already have, watched for change. The knowledge base→
- What proves it
- The pass test on your real drive: the register matches the drive, the duplicate is one entry, the client file is quarantined, a replaced edition is caught by the watch.
- What it costs
- The standard is free. A scoped build after the audit at the published rates. No monthly fee, because nothing of ours runs afterwards.
- What it unlocks
- Everything above this rung. It is the long one, weeks for a network, and it is the one nobody demos.
- 3
Staff can ask
You are here if
- The same question about a rule gets asked forty times a week.
- A confident wrong answer about a rule somebody signs against would cost you.
What to do
- Promote the register into a graph: typed nodes, a person on every acceptance, a change list. The Knowledge Graph standard→
- Put Cited Answer on top: a clause with a card, or a decline to a person. The Cited Answer standard→
- What proves it
- Detach the library and ask the question. A decline is the pass.
- What it costs
- Both standards are free. There is no product for the gate, and you should be suspicious of anyone selling one.
- What it unlocks
- An assistant that can be trusted with the rules, because it can be shown to stop.
- 4
The record writes itself
You are here if
- The enquiry, the interview or the quote still ends in somebody retyping it.
- The book of past customers is worked by whoever has a quiet Friday.
What to do
- Quote Out: a job that exists becomes a draft quote priced only from your own book. The Quote Out standard→
- Invoice Out: the invoice exists in the ledger the day the job finishes, one per job, released by you or by your rule. The Invoice Out standard→
- Advice File: the interview becomes one file in the CRM, gaps become tasks, a draft no machine can send. The Advice File standard→
- Work the list: the database you already own, ranked with a reason per row. Work the List→
- Inbox Triage and Dispatch Board: the inbox filed against the record, the right person at the right house, each told once. The Inbox Triage standard→
- What proves it
- The conformance run green on your own tenant. One file, one quote, one ranked list, each with an external id back.
- What it costs
- The standards are free. Where a live step exists it is an insert, flat monthly. Where it does not, a scoped build.
- What it unlocks
- The system of record you already run becomes the record, and the phone, the inbox and the book all write into it.
- 5
Paperwork stops bouncing
You are here if
- The claim, the pack or the subcontractor invoice fails after the work is done.
- An obligation falls due on somebody else's schedule and you find out late.
What to do
- Rejected Pack: one graph, eight checks in order, a named person on the gate. The Rejected Pack standard→
- Invoice Check and the Compliance Calendar: the two children, for payables and for dates. The builders page→
- Timesheet Check and Two Records: hours traced before payroll, and two systems made to agree with a person on every correction. The Timesheet Check standard→
- What proves it
- The pack passes the checks before it is sent, and the calendar derives the due date from a rule with an effective date.
- What it costs
- The standards are free. The binding layer is a scoped build, and it is the hard step.
- What it unlocks
- Claims paid first time, and a compliance book that is worked rather than discovered.
- 6
Many offices, one standard
You are here if
- Two branches both say they use the system and produce records that cannot be joined.
- Training material is being called a control.
What to do
- Multi-Site Conformance: one versioned key contract, four kinds of drift, one score computed once. The Multi-Site standard→
- How the six foundational standards stack, and the order to build them. Combining the standards→
- What proves it
- A drift report that publishes on schedule whether or not it found anything, and a threshold that routes to a named person.
- What it costs
- The standard is free. The production check runs over your own key contract and evidence.
- What it unlocks
- A network rather than a brand: every office scored off the same keys, and the next standard built by an agent from the last one's checks.
Why this order
Cash before foundation. Rung 1 needs nothing underneath it: a number is pointed, the job is written into the system you already run, and the proof id arrives with the first call. It is also where the money comes back, which is what pays for the long rung after it. A business that starts at the foundation with no win behind it usually stalls there, and the foundation is measured in weeks.
Foundation before anything that answers. Rungs 3 and 4 read from the register built at rung 2. Build the assistant first and it answers from whichever copy of the manual it found, which is the failure every standard above rung 2 exists to prevent. The order is not a preference. Each rung reads the one below it.
Stopping is allowed. Most businesses will fix rung 1 and rung 2 and go no further this year. That is the right outcome for most of them, and it is why every rung is priced on its own rather than as a programme.
What stays with you
- Which rung you are on. Nobody scores you; you read the ladder and place yourself.
- Whether to climb at all. A business that fixes rung 1 and stops has fixed the thing that leaked most.
- Every signature, every acceptance and every owner's name on the way up. The standards draft; a person decides.
Eight minutes to find your rung. The next one is already written.
Run the diagnosis